Veronica Vasicka has unearthed countless gems and revived a subgenre with Minimal Wave, the label she founded in 2005. Vasicka’s sound was partly cultivated via online radio station East Village Radio, where she was the station’s first program director. And her reputation cemented with the release ofThe Minimal Wave Tapes Volume One on Stones Throw in 2010. Ever since, she’s spread this incredible sound via her labels and DJ sets. Here, Vasicka discusses founding her label and much more.

Taiwo and Kehinde Hassan AKA Christian Rich have created some of the most progressive rap productions of the ’10s. After producing for artists like Foxy Brown and Lil Kim in the ’00s, Rich racked up credits with rappers like Earl Sweatshirt, Drake and J. Cole. Since moving to Berlin two years ago, Rich have continued that trajectory, producing songs for Jaden Smith and collaborating with Little Dragon and fellow Chicagoan Vic Mensa. Here, they discuss their biggest hits and their approach to...

Manuel Göttsching is one of Germany's most influential talents. In the ’70s, he co-founded pioneering krautrock group Ash Ra Tempel and released several works of minimalist guitar music. In 1984, he made a left turn with E2-E4, the classic that wed Göttsching’s guitar with minimal electronic music. Since then, Göttsching has resurrected Ash Ra Tempel under the name Ashra and continued to compose new music. Here, Göttsching discussed his feelings about the term “krautrock,” the making of E2-E4 an

After discovering footwork while majoring in math at Purdue University, Jlin began studying from genre pioneers like RP Boo and DJ Rashad. Her track “Erotic Heat” caught the attention of Mike Paradinas, who included it on Planet Mu's Bangs & Works, Vol. 2 compilation. She worked at a steel mill while she wrote her acclaimed 2015 debut, Dark Energy. Her sophomore album, Black Origami, received even greater praise. Her latest is Autobiography, a score for her collaboration with...

Born in the Bronx, Frankie Knuckles grew up during the early days of disco and was a regular at the Loft and the Gallery. He cut his DJ teeth with Larry Levan before heading to Chicago, where he helped shape and design the Warehouse, the club that birthed and named house music. While in Chicago, he also recorded some of the greatest music ever to bear the name house. Here, this legend, who tragically passed away in 2014, takes us through his 40-year career, from New York to Chicago and back...

When footwork first erupted in Chicago, few were able to put names to the music behind the wild dancing. Gradually, DJ Spinn and DJ Rashad (who passed away in 2014) emerged as prime movers, with a crate full of beats designed to move the crowd and the curiosity and knowledge to look beyond their neighborhood. First they traveled to Detroit, then the world. Here, they reflect on the origins of juke and footwork, look at where it’s at now and claim that it’s high time urban music’s major...

Chicago producer Kavain Space, AKA RP Boo, invented footwork with his 1997 track “Baby Come On.” By upping the tempo of ghetto house, he established a new template for an entire generation of dancers and producers. Space continues to produce and DJ around the world, his enduring success proving that there’s still no one quite like him. Here, RP Boo recalled the trials, tribulations, dances and productions that made him a pioneer of a unique Chicago sound.

Many musicians genre-hop, but few have an inventive take on every style they touch. Cue Objekt. Across his output on labels like Hessle Audio, Leisure System and PAN, audacious sound design and arrangements twist dancefloor conventions. In parallel, Objekt has become a must-see DJs of his generation thanks to a deft mixing style and a technician’s mindset honed through work as an instrument developer at Native Instruments. Here, he delves into his sound design and meticulous approach to DJing.

Senegal-born, Kuwait-raised and Berlin-residing producer Fatima Al Qadiri pulls together personal and political geographies. As a child, she experienced the Gulf War firsthand – a trauma that was furthered by her love for video games and playing the Desert Strike video game barely two years after she saw her native Kuwait destroyed. Memory is a crucial element of her own hyper-digital, often beatless landscapes. Here, she recounts her personal history and talks about reframing disparate...

Malcolm Cecil was in a series of ’50s and ’60s jazz bands, but it was the synthesizer that really excited him. With Bob Margouleff he formed T.O.N.T.O.’s Expanding Head Band. The name was an acronym of a synth designed and built by Cecil himself. A dazzled Stevie Wonder instantly recruited Cecil and Margouleff, making them co-producers on his series of classic albums from Music Of My Mind through Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Here, Cecil discusses T.O.N.T.O., Wonder, what it means to produce...

Robert Henke is one of the most significant figures in electronic music. Along with Gerhard Behles, Henke developed Ableton Live, the DAW that allows musicians to store and trigger samples during shows. He's also made abstract computer music and dance-derived techno as Monolake. Here, Henke discusses the at-times improbable story of how Live came to be. We begin by hearing about what Berlin was like when Henke first moved there and the beginnings of Monolake, setting the scene for the...

Ryuichi Sakamoto came to fame with Yellow Magic Orchestra, along with solo work and collaborations with the likes of David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Iggy Pop and Berlin-based electronic artist Alva Noto AKA Carsten Nicolai. The pair met when Carsten was performing in Tokyo, and together they formed their own sound, with Sakamoto’s minimal piano complementing Nicolai’s glowing digital tapestry. Here, they discuss their musical backgrounds, their approach to collaboration and live performance.

Hailing from Germany, Modeselektor work in a variety of tempos and styles with an emphasis on big, warpy synth sounds and heavy basslines that can threaten foundations. With plenty of artist albums and Moderat, their joint project with Apparat, it's as an audio/visual live act that they’ve truly conquered hearts and minds. Here, they bring the same anarchic disdain and chaos they’re known for in their live sets while discussing the fall of the Berlin Wall, German record store Hard Wax,...

Richie Hawtin always pushes the envelope: he started Plus 8 Records with John Acquaviva, formed the M-nus empire and developed Final Scratch. His works as F.U.S.E., the delicious desolation of Plastikman and his groundbreaking works with the Concept series and Decks, EFX & 909 are all firmly planted in techno's history. A fierce advocate of technology, he's continued to operate at the limits, whether via his CONTAKT events or his Ibiza night ENTER. Here, Hawtin reflects on his...

After her family moved to Berlin, Hanin Elias ran away from home and into the city’s punk and hardcore scene. In 1992 she formed Atari Teenage Riot with Alec Empire and MC Carl Crack, fusing punk and techno into what they termed digital hardcore. In 1999, Elias left the band and focused on solo work and championing female and female-identifying artists through her label Fatal Recordings. Here, Elias retraces her steps from punk squats to festival stages and onwards to a lasting independent...

Mike Grinser made his name as one half of Manmade Mastering, alongside Tim Xavier. In addition, Grinser also works at Berlin's renowned Dubplates & Mastering. Grinser was a rock fan before being turned onto electronic music in clubs. Intrigued, he sought to understand how this music was created, learning to DJ before moving to production. Sitting in mastering sessions for his own records, he acquired a deep interest in the technical side. Here, Grinser shares details on what goes into...

Alexander Hacke joined the influential Einstürzende Neubauten shortly after the band’s formation in 1980. Gareth Jones worked at the iconic Hansa Tonstudio, adding an industrial edge to recordings by Depeche Mode and others. Their paths crossed when Jones contributed production to the Neubauten albums Halber Mensch and Fünf auf der nach oben offenen Richterskala. Here, Jones and Hacke discuss their work with Neubauten, Berlin in the ’80s and what it means to create a signature sound.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, a young Alec Empire looked to the rebellious sounds of techno, acid house and punk to inform a new project: Atari Teenage Riot. The trio debuted in 1992 and became notorious for its self-styled digital hardcore sound. When ATR split in 2000, the group and its founder had become household names beyond their humble beginnings. In this episode recorded as part of the Red Bull Music Academy Bass Camp Berlin 2017, Empire recalls the city's reunification years...

Black Coffee, real name Nathi Maphumulo, serves as Durban's house music elder statesman. His style is, in his words, “home-brewed but future-focused.” Maphumulo's recording career began in 2005 with a remix of Hugh Masekela's 1972 hit "Stimela" and has gone on to include five solo albums, including 2015's 'Pieces of Me,' which has been certified double platinum in South Africa. Here, Black Coffee discusses the early club sounds of South Africa, breaking through in a burgeoning local industry...

Bernie Worrell came to prominence as a founding member Parliament/Funkadelic, radically utilizing emerging keyboard technology during the golden age of synths. Later, he resurfaced with the Talking Heads. Worrell has also been a prolific studio musician, contributing to projects by the likes of Keith Richards and Deee-Lite, and he’s among the most-sampled musicians ever. In his 2013 Red Bull Music Academy lecture, Worrell sat on the couch – and behind the Hammond – to discuss his biggest...

The Atlanta-born Michael Williams’ journey began with a gift from his father, a Korg ES-1 sampler, followed by his first break: producing for hometown hero Gucci Mane. While the man best known as Mike WiLL Made-It is capable of impeccable rap-pop, he saves his weirdest, most adventurous work for crossover wunderkinds like Miley Cyrus and Rae Sremmurd. The incomparable producer talked about all of this and more during his lecture at the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy.

Grammy Award-winning musician, actor and activist Harry Belafonte is one of the most successful Jamaican-American artists of all time, renowned for bringing the Caribbean sound to the international mainstream. A close friend and adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Belafonte was also at the forefront of the civil rights movement. In this public conversation at the 2018 Red Bull Music Festival in NYC, he spoke with curator Kimberly Drew about activism, legacy and the power of folk art.

Starting her career in the late 1960s, Cosey Fanni Tutti went on to become a seismic force in experimental music. Whether delivering confrontational performance art as part of COUM Transmissions, pioneering industrial music with Throbbing Gristle, or constructing a prototype for acid house in Carter Tutti, her work has frequently been years ahead of its time. In her fascinating lecture at the 2010 Red Bull Music Academy in London, she delved into emotion, meaning and provocation in art.

Originally a rock and blues guitarist, Junior Marvin became a member of Bob Marley & The Wailers from 1977 to 1981 after getting into reggae through Toots & The Maytals. He continued playing with the Wailers until 1997, and in his lecture at the 2016 Red Bull Music Academy, he looks back on a career that brought him close to greats like Bob Marley, Stevie Wonder and Jimi Hendrix.

Around Berlin, Rashad Becker’s name is synonymous with sonic brilliance — a mastering engineer at the famed Dubplates & Mastering studio, he put the finishing touches on over 1,200 of your favorite techno, dub and house records. His album 'Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. 1’ is a disorienting three-dimensional thrill ride inside Becker’s mind. In his 2014 Red Bull Music Academy lecture in Tokyo, he talked creating chewy and complex music, and how you can manipulate your sounds...